Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
WiFi Performance
Microsoft made an unusual choice for Surface’s WiFi hardware, it uses a Marvell AVASTAR dual-band MIMO (2x2) 802.11n wireless network controller (88W8797?). Marvell tends to be one of the more cost effective players in the industry which could help explain Microsoft’s choice.
Despite the rarely used silicon, WiFi range on Surface is quite good. Subjectively I was able to hold on to 2.4GHz signals at greater distances than I could on both the 3rd gen iPad, ASUS’ Transformer Pad Infinity and even compared to the VivoTab RT based on some short time I had with the device. Surface also maintains good distances on 5GHz however the performance drop offs are far more significant.
The sweet spot for Surface’s WiFi appears to be around 40 feet away from an AP, with minimal obstructions (doors/walls are fine). Within this range in my testing I was able to maintain speeds of around 20 – 40Mbps. Add another 20 or so feet and you’ll see performance cut in half again.
Although range is good on Surface, at the outer edges of coverage you’re looking at 2 – 4Mbps, which is only really enough for casual web browsing.
The only real downside to Surface’s WiFi performance is its peak performance. I wasn’t able to get beyond 42Mbps when copying files to the device from a local server on the network. It’s possible that I was limited by some file sharing protocol overhead, but without a good suite of network performance tools for Windows RT it was the best I could do for now.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
235 Comments
View All Comments
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Doesnt it bother you that simply typing a vanilla document in Office uses so much cpu power. You think they are ever going to fix that? What happens when you give it access to much more cpu resources? Will it simply consume it all?andrewaggb - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Both Anand and Vivek said it keeps up though, which is the main thing I think. And these are guys who type for a living. Really it drives home that anything slower than tegra 3 wouldn't cut it and tegra 3 is barely fast enough.As for what happens when you give it more cpu, how does word run on your current desktop? On my first gen core i7 laptop (dual core), I can get word up to 4% cpu in task mgr by key bashing.
I'd be very interested in seeing what battery life and video performance an atom based tablet gets.
robmuld - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
The choice of 16:9 for the display just tells me Microsoft will never get itN4g4rok - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Have you looked at the Pro version spec sheet?WP7Mango - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Actually, Microsoft DO get it. There are 3 reasons why 16:9 is preferable -1. It allows for the Windows 8 / RT multitasking feature - two apps snapped side by side, with one app taking up a thin column whilst the other app taking up a larger portion. These can be swapped round just by dragging the seperator between them. Even the desktop can be snapped with a metro app this way. It's an elegant solution to multitasking on a tablet, and a feature that the iPad doesn't have.
2. It's the ideal size for watching movies whilst minimising black borders.
3. The extra horizonal screen space gives you more flexibility in terms of app UI capabilities.
ET - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I think it's a pity that Microsoft doesn't allow running .NET apps on the desktop interface. That would have made Window RT comparable to Windows 8 and allowed using the Surface as a full PC, with a decent choice of software already available.jamawass - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Interesting review. Does the usb port support cameras? Can pictures be transferred from a camera to the surface as on a desktop?WP7Mango - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Yes, the USB port does support cameras. Yes, pictures can be transferred from a camera to the Surface just like you can on a desktop PC.karasaj - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I don't know if you're still answering questions Anand (or any staff) but do you think Surface RT would suffice for a university student who just needs to rapidly type on Microsoft office for ~50 minutes without it feeling sluggish at all? That and streaming netflix are probably all that I need to do with Surface, if I can do that, then I'd pay for surface over an ultrabook (i.e. vizio ct14-a0) for the portability and battery life.B3an - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
I think Surface would be the best option for that kind of stuff. It's perfectly suited for it. My brother is at uni and wants the same kind of thing, and he's getting a Surface.